May 20, 2012

RCRD Game 2 2012: Smash Malice vs Brutal Pageant

As a long time fan of Roller Derby - a regular when it started gaining attention 2-3 years ago - I feel that there's just something that's *changed* about Derby. The *feel* of it has gone almost. I still enjoy it - people still dress up (someone going full out in an Elmo costume) and there are still prizes for home-made signs, but the little things could just make it so much better (explained further below).

The night starts off only 7 minutes late - a nice change as other games I have been to usually start about 15-30 minutes late. They have new sponsors in ZM and each team has bigger and more official banners.

Instead of the MCs explaining how derby works while the teams warm up, they asked people to pair up with those who have never been before. I really think the explanation of how the game works could be done better - people I knew there who had never been before had no clue what was going on.

An avid supporter of Brutal Pageant, it's going to be an awful lose to Smash Malice. This team used to be so good! What happened?! Where has Perky Nah Nah gone? She hasn't been in this team for a long time I can say one really good change to the Derby community - the fact that Boston Backlash no longer MC's.

So on the subject of MC's - last night they felt awkward. They didn't fit together as a group, didn't have a smooth flow, and were quite hard to hear at times. They had a hard time getting a response from the crowd.

The half time entertainment was local ceroc group performing to a couple of songs. They had a good response from the audience, though I still miss The Hot Bitches - the cheerleading squad from a couple of years ago. They were just fantastic and always funny. Bring them back.

Brutal are still losing, badly. . Referee DangerDanger keeps the crowd entertained with some of his specialist roller dancing whilst an official time out is taking place. There's about 10 minutes to go. The MCs keep insisting that Brutal may make a come back.

1 comment:

Yup that feel is no longer there. I got a big whiff of it when I was walking normally to my seat and got pushed out the way by what I would call "teeny boppers" running to try get front row. There was a derby virgin sitting next to me and she said "I would ask you to explain but it's too loud for me to hear you"Brutal has appeared to have lost it's spark - I think the transition from the Thigh Voltage/Perky Nah Nah team leadership last year to Rusty this year hasn't gone entirely smooth. They have had a good injection of awesomeness with Meat Train transferring from Mount Militia though. I just hope that the next bout (Slams/Brutal) isn't as one sided as it would appear it might be after this walloping and the Slams/Malice bout being an awesome nail biter.